AHEAD (Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deployment)

The COPS AHEAD program was designed to provide funding directly to local,
state, and tribal jurisdictions for the salaries and benefits of newly hired
officers engaged in community policing. As one of the COPS Office's first hiring
programs, AHEAD funding was awarded to help law enforcement agencies form
partnerships with their communities to develop innovative ways to address
longstanding problems. The AHEAD program served jurisdictions with populations
greater than 50,000. Smaller jurisdictions were funded under the COPS FAST grant
program.

COPS AHEAD provided federal funding for 75 percent of a newly hired
entry-level officer's salary and benefits, up to $75,000 per officer, over the
3-year grant period. Either the newly hired officers were deployed into
community policing activities or a comparable number of veteran officers were
redeployed into community policing in their place. Each department was required
to contribute at least 25 percent in local matching funds.

The AHEAD grant program, which was announced in April 1995, awarded
approximately $284 million to almost 500 law enforcement agencies to fund the
hiring of nearly 4,000 officers. AHEAD and FAST were merged into the COPS
Universal Hiring Program (UHP).